When Saul Bellow wrote his roman a clef, Humboldt's Gift, even
knowledgeable readers had trouble recalling the model for Von Humboldt
Fleisher. The difficulty would not have occurred if Bellow's chief
character had been based on Robert Lowell or John Berry man or Theodore
Roethke. Yet, for these celebrated poets, Delmore Schwartz was once the
front runner of their generation.

No young poet since has so dazzled his peers. When Schwartz's first
book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,...